Owners of a California coffee shop doubled down on their refusal to serve police officers, claiming cops threaten their “physical and emotional safety.”

The Hasta Muerte Coffee owners refused service to a Latino police sergeant March 8 and are now defending that decision despite growing outrage, KTVU reported. The shop is a worker-owned collective with a mural criticizing police shootings and the militarization of law enforcement. Oakland’s police union wrote a letter to the owners complaining about the measure. A local city councilman said while he disagrees with the policy, there aren’t any plans to stop it.

“We know in our experience working on campaigns against police brutality that we are not alone saying that police presence compromises our feelings of physical & emotional safety,” Hasta Muerte Coffee posted on its Instagram page. “The facts are that poc [people of color], women and queer police are complicit in upholding the same law and order that routinely criminalizes and terrorizes black and brown and poor folks, especially youth, trans and houseless folks. For these reasons and so many more, we need the support of the actual community to keep this place safe, not police.”

Officers were disappointed but would respect their policy, the Oakland Police Department replied, according to the New York Daily News. Some Oakland residents were less forgiving.